Tuesday 4 February 2014 14.26 EST
First published on Tuesday 4 February 2014 14.26 EST

Bob Dudley threw caution to the wind on Tuesday managing to eclipse BP's positive annual financial results by making some forthright comments on Scotland and shale.

One presumes he thought hard about his intervention on such a sensitive issue as the wisdom of going it alone north of the border but felt it was important that a key commercial stakeholder defended its patch.

Equally, it was honest to admit that the involvement of a post-Macondo BP in the highly controversial and nascent English fracking environment would be like a red rag to a bull.

Behind these interesting comments came some fairly strong financial results from a company that has sold off half its platforms, pipelines and facilities in the last couple of years to pay for the impact of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

Despite having raised $38bn disposing of businesses in recent years and being hit over the three-month period by weak refining margins plus writing off more exploration losses, BP managed to hold its fourth-quarter profits at $2.8bn, down from $3.9bn, while annual earnings came in at $13.4bn, down from $17.1bn.

A less than 28% profit fall over the last three months compared with rival Shell's 71% decline, while BP spent a modest $25bn across the year compared to Shell's $46bn.

It took home more than $1bn for the final quarter from its new Russian partner Rosneft, in which it has a 20% stake. Again plenty of honesty from Dudley on the relationship in Moscow. BP is consulted on issues but as the American admitted: "We don't run the company."

BP still has a key US court decision on "gross negligence" hanging over its head but otherwise it looks seriously on the mend.